Feeling lost and confused with life, need advice
Feeling lost and confused with life, need advice
I'm a 37 year old IT Cloud Engineer, I have a great job, great house, love my family, but recently I lost my dad to cancer after a 16 year battle. My brother likes to say cancer had to cheat to win, it was all because he broke his back and had to be taken off his treatments for to long. Cancer is a fickle bitch...
Prior to losing my dad, I lost my best friend, who apparently dropped dead in his backyard. I don't know the specifics and frankly I don't want to know. Either way, these events effected me, and I started having massive panic attacks and anxiety issues, constantly afraid for my health even though there's nothing wrong with me. It took a few months of therapy to realize I needed medical help.
I was put on antidepressants and everything changed, I was a human again for the first time in like a decade. I was happy, I was successful, but now, idk if I'm just having a midlife crisis, or if maybe I'm just feeling depressed again, but I just feel lost. I've lost one of the few people in my life I've modeled my success after, my father, I lost the other person I could hang out with and empathize with, I have my wife and I love her to death, but my friend had been that person that was just there to hang out and make you feel better, and now they're gone. I'm still struggling to cope and it's just really hard and I need a place to vent.
Anyone have any ideas on how to cope and move on as well as control the anxiety without the need to be medicated?
TL;DR: Lost my dad and my best friend in the course of two years and it's been rough. Now I feel lost and confused constantly. Cloudy brain and I just don't want to be complacent in life and need some advice. Thanks for reading.
Edit: just wanted to say thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I'm going to take the advice I've been given here to heart and try some new things to try and give me some direction. Thank you all again so much for the help, it really made me feel a lot better.
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You’ve already begun thinking about this about both of my recommendations, but I’ll second them: a physical activity you enjoy, and interacting with a group doing something you all enjoy.
While some people are fulfilled by their job, and many people by their spouses and children, those things require work.
A hobby where you do something for the sheer enjoyment of it, not because of the output it gives you but because you just enjoy the process of doing it, is great for your mental health.
I also think there’s no substitute for having fun with a group, ideally in person, especially if family and work take up a lot of your time. You won’t realize how much you’ve missed saying “that was fun, see you next week!” until you start saying it again.
It’s hard for lots of guys, especially with families, to consistently schedule one-off activities, or even just time to talk. You lost the two people it sounds like you could do that with, and now your feeling the result.
You’ll obviously never be able to replace either of them, but by having a group you see weekly doing something you enjoy, you’ll be able to fill that need, and your mental health will improve as a result.
PS, if you like guild wars, one thing I’d recommend for your in-person activity is DnD. I moved recently and I can’t tell you how much help it’s made creating a friend group. Once a week we get together at a house, drink some beers, order food, shoot the shit, and do something we all enjoy. I look forward to it every week.